Death Dates should be Banned - by law!
Let me explain - a Death Date is when your oncologist, for reasons best known to themselves (more on that later) feel that it is in your best interests to tell you how long you have to live: “I’m sorry, the news could not be worse, I suggest that you go home and put your affairs in order because you only have 3 / 6 / 12 months left to live”.
I feel compelled to write something about this because I have heard this too many times and I am utterly appalled by this practice. And for those of you out there who think “No, surely they don’t really say that do they?” believe me they do. And I know two people personally to whom this has been said recently.
Let me be very clear here - nobody, and I mean NOBODY, has any right under ANY circumstances WHATEVER, to tell you how long you have left to live. Only YOU can make that decision and that is based entirely on the choices you decide to make, from here on in. And one of those choices is to ABSOLUTELY REFUSE TO HEAR THAT DEATH DATE AS THE TRUTH.
Apologies for being shouty but it has to be said, and said very loudly.
Not all oncologists are like this. In fact, I was listening to one recently on a video link who, when talking about a patient who had been told he had three months to live, said I wonder where that doctor got his prophysing machine from? Because I don’t have one and I don’t know anyone else who has one either.
Telling someone that they only have a short time to live (apparently they are so accurate they can tell you how many months it will be) is cruel, inhuman, and utterly without compassion. And this from the person who is supposed to be taking care of you.
What it actually is, is a Curse. A Spell. A self-fulfilling Prophecy. Because people who take this false information on, often do actually die on or around the date they are told. And when post-mortems are done on these patients, they have found that there was not enough cancer in the body to kill them. But they still died, because they were told they would, by a Powerful Person in a White Coat. It wasn’t the cancer that killed them. It was the Death Date.
So why do doctors do this? I have a theory.
Doctors are taught absolutely nothing about the mind / body connection. (For more on this see my blog post “My approach to supporting people with cancer") Add to this the potent “White Coat Syndrome” where most of us have been brought up to believe anything the Doctor tells us, and hey presto, you have your lethal Death Date scenario.
“But why do they continue to do this?” I hear you ask. Because, in my opinion, once they have seen that they are “right” a few times, and have that backed up by other doctor’s experience as well, it makes them feel very powerful. Suddenly they know the answer. And, in the conventional medical world doctors can feel hopeless and helpless in front of a patient who they believe is dying before their eyes, and yet that patient still has faith in them. So they tell them the only thing they THINK they know because they have seen it happen before: you’re going to die. And they know when.
What a miserable, unutterably wretched thing to say to anyone. And yet it is said with total conviction, to people who are so stressed that they have absolutely no defences and so that message goes deep inside, like an ear worm. Like a Curse.
If doctors understood more about the Mind / Body connection (which includes the “White Coat Syndrome”) they would understand that it is the most powerful system in the whole body. The beliefs we have, the way we think and how we feel all have a direct effect on the body.
If you are stressed, your stress hormones go up and your immune system becomes depleted, so there is no capacity to fight disease. Simple as that. That’s why we get ill when we are feeling overworked / tired / stressed, and why we can shrug off infections, or in fact not have them at all, when we are happy, sleeping well and eating well. If the self-talk in your head tells you “I’m no good, I don’t deserve a loving relationship, nobody loves me” guess what? You will miss out on that loving relationship and you won’t see the people in your life who DO love you.
If doctors knew this, instead of saying “you’re going to die” they would say something like “the test results are not what we want to see, so we are going to have to muster all our resources (note the “we”, you and the doctor are a team now) and get you good and strong. That means you cleaning up your diet and getting some exercise alongside any treatment we give you. It also means dealing with your emotional baggage and getting your mindset sorted because your body will respond much better if you are thinking and feeling positive”. That’s White Coat Syndrome at its best!
So if a doctor ever tells you (or someone you know) that you only have a few months to live, here’s what to do:
At best, shout back at them straight away: “DON’T YOU DARE PRESUME TO TELL ME WHEN I AM GOING TO DIE!! THAT’S FOR ME TO KNOW, NOT YOU!”
If you can’t quite manage that, and let’s face it, most people can’t, try the following few steps:
as soon as possible take yourself off to a quiet spot, take some calming breaths, close your eyes and repeat like a mantra: “Nobody can tell me when I will die. Nobody has control over my body except me. I am strong. I can do this.” Repeat this constantly until it becomes your truth.
Surround yourself with positive energy and only tell the people who you know will support you. No more negative talk.
Try these books:
“Love, Medicine and Miracles” by Bernie Siegel
“Radical Remission: Surviving Cancer against All Odds” by Kelly A Turner
Listen to this podcast: “Stories that Heal”
Give me a call so that I can support you